from The Illearth War:
"Foul wanted the Lords to trust me because he knew what kind of man I am. Dear God! It doesn't matter how much I hate him. He knew I'm the kind of man who backs into corners where just being failable is the same thing as treachery.
But you forget it isn't up to me anymore. I've done my part - I've put you where you haven't got any choice. Now Mhoram has got to save you. It's on his head."
Quaan appeared torn between his dismay for the Warward and his concern for Troy. "Even a Lord may be defeated," he replied gruffly.
"I'm not talking about a Lord," Troy rasped. "I'm talking about Mhoram."
In his weariness, Lord Mhoram ached to deny this, to refuse the burden. He said, "Warmark, of course I will do all that lies within my strength. But if Lord Foul has chosen you for the work of our destruction - ah, then, my friend, all aid will not avail. The burden of this plan will return to you at the last."
"No." Troy kept his face toward the fire, as if reliving the acid burn which had blinded him. "You've given your whole life to the Land, and you're going to give it now."
"The Despiser knows me well," Mhoram breathed. "He ridicules me in his dreams." He could hear echoes of that belittling mirth, but he kept them at a distance. "Do not mistake me Warmark. I do not flinch from this burden. I accept it. On Kevin's Watch I made my promise - and you dared this plan because of that promise. You have not done ill. But I must speak of what is in my heart. You are the Warmark. I believe that the command of this fate must finally return to you.
Hile Troy knew his plan would not work as soon as he saw the size of the Giant Raver's Army from the top of Kevin's Watch. His first instinctive reaction was to attempt suicide by trying to throw himself off of the top of the Watch.
He then tried to recover his plan a bit, by allowing one of the Lords to face the Giant Raver alone with his Bloodguard (essentially a suiceide mision) to cover the retreat of the Warward out into the desert (with not enough food or water). They are assailed by very fell magic in the ruins there, and Troy loses his Land-given site, as well as falling apart emotionally (though, granted, falling apart emotionally was helped along by the Vortex of trepidation).
They end up in a place where no one has ever come back from alive -- the forest of Garroting Deep. They are trapped between the huge opposing army and the forbidden forest. What is left of the warward is being slaugtered. Mhoram has to save what is left of the Warward, though hIle Troy, as the quotes indicate, did indeed pay the price.
Without Mhoram figuring out how to call the Forestal, the entire Warward would have been killed, with no gains at all for that sacrifice.
